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WIT Studio Starts Vertical-Scrolling Manga Team, Launches 1st Series
posted on by Joanna Cayanan
The official Twitter account of Wit Studio revealed on Sunday that it has launched a planning and production team for its vertical-scrolling full-color manga app called HykeComic. The studio collaborated with FUZI and OZ WORD to create its first manga series titled Estée: Hajimari no Mahō o Tsugumono (Estée: The Heir of the Original Magic). The manga will launch simultaneously on Wit Studio's HykeComic vertical-scrolling manga app, and on the LINE Manga app on June 25.
Based on FUZI and OZ WORD's original novel Wizards Nova, the manga is set in a world where people can now use "apparatus" to make magic in lieu of wands and spells — thus making traditional robed wizards obsolete.
Estée is a wizard who grew up in the backwoods. She was taught magic by her grandmother at a young age, but she is useless at even rudimentary magic. She decides to leave her hometown to go to a magic school in the city. There, she gets caught up in the fight to save the world.
Wit Studio is known for its animation in anime series such as Attack on Titan, Spy×Family, and Ranking of Kings among others.
Wit Studio and FUZI collaborated for The Missing 8 original web anime based on FUZI's music videos in 2021. Naoki Yoshibe (JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) directed the anime.
Production I.G launched the Tate Anime (Vertical Anime) app in June 2017 and it ended service in May 2018. The app relaunched in June 2018 with the new Anime Beans name, and ended service on March 31 earlier this year. The Tate Anime app offered short (about three-minute) anime that updated on weekdays, and each series had 10 episodes. The anime were presented vertically for smartphones.
BookWalker Global launched the TATESC Comics vertical-scrolling webcomic brand in English last year. Kadokawa launched the service in Japanese in August 2021.
Echoes, Bandai, and Bandai Namco Filmworks established a new joint business venture for a vertical-scrolling manga label and service named Bandana Comic in February. The site will launch sometime after summer, and the service will begin sometime at the end of 2023.
Shueisha announced in May that it will launch a new vertical scrolling manga service named Jump Toon in 2024.
Rakuten announced this month its partnership with Shonengahosha, Straight Edge Inc., and Nitroplus to launch their R-Toon vertical-scrolling manga service.
